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Today I would like to take a moment to shine a spotlight on an up and coming indie developer who has made some incredibly well crafted games in the past few years, and is bar none one of the best developers currently inhabiting the Xbox Live Indie Game Marketplace. If you’ve got a 360 and you haven’t tried either Escape Goat or the Soulcaster games, you’re really missing out on a couple of the absolute best experiences on the platform. In this article I’ll briefly go over the outstanding games that he’s made, then at the end there’s a Q&A where we get to hear from the man himself. Read more…

Indie Fortress is a site completely dedicated to the promotion of the indie gaming scene, but how do you determine whether or not a game is qualified to be considered an indie title? What is it about these games and their developers that makes them so different from more traditional game studios, and why do they get attached to that increasingly popular buzzword, the indie? What does being an indie developer even mean?

The scene has really blossomed over these past few years, almost to the point where it’s in it’s own little market. The uniquely affordable bundles are one aspect of that, but to be honest, even without the bundles, many indie titles are already significantly less expensive than your average retail game from a ‘AAA’ studio. Oftentimes, the product is inarguably more creative than anything you’d get out of one of those big name studios as well. My personal gaming time is dominated nearly exclusively by these games that we brand as “indies,” but what does that really mean? Is an indie developer defined by how large the team is? What about funding, does it matter where their money comes from? If so, what about studios like Supergiant Games, who developed Bastion all on their own dime, then once it was finished had it published by Warner Bros? Does that final act of seeking assistance from a big name publisher somehow strip Bastion of the right to be called an indie game? Read more…

As far as my online presence is concerned, my name is Dante2k4, and this site, The Indie Fortress, has been created as a way to promote the indie gaming scene.

The goal of Indie Fortress is to provide a database of quality indie titles for people to refer to. Whether you want to find something off the beaten path, or perhaps just introduce a newcomer to the world of indies, I hope to present a great resource to anybody looking for quality indie games. Keep in mind that this does not mean that you will find every quality indie title ever created mentioned on this site. I am only one person and there’s only so much I can cover.

That being said, I wholeheartedly believe that there is an amazingly under appreciated world of games out there that people need to be made aware of, and I will do my best to help bring them in to the light. Any game featured on Indie Fortress is a title that I personally have experienced and will vouch for. I want to spotlight games that people will genuinely want to play. If you come to this page looking for great indie games to check out, that’s what I want to give you. You could write enough books about all of the bad indie games out there to fill a library (for there are oh so many), so I’d like to just keep the focus primarily on the good that indie gaming has to offer.

Fair warning: I will be eschewing the oft employed numbering system that many reviewers tend to use. I’ve been reading reviews at various popular gaming websites since the late 90’s, and I’ve come to believe that numbered scores don’t always reflect how the reviewer actually felt. So in light of this, I’m doing away with that system altogether. When I read reviews, I don’t read them just to get the score at the end, I read them to hear what the reviewer actually thought about the game, and hear actual examples to back up these thoughts. I want to be told about a game, not given an arbitrary number that stands for some predetermined level of worth. A number isn’t going to tell me why a reviewer liked or disliked a game, and I certainly won’t be able to tell whether or not it sounds like something interesting or something that I’d enjoy just based on the number at the end of the review. Everybody has different tastes, and these reviews are meant to be read, so no number scores. Just read what I say and if it sounds interesting, check it out.

Thanks for reading! I hope I can help someone out there find a new game to play that they otherwise wouldn’t have ever heard about!

The Mission:

The idea behind Indie Fortress is to create a database of outstanding indie games for people to reference whenever they're in search of something that's a little off the beaten path. Any game covered on this site is a title that I've personally played and can wholeheartedly recommend.

The world of indie gaming is a pretty big place, and it's getting bigger every year. I can understand how people new to the scene might not know where to begin, and may possibly get turned off by the idea of having to sift through oceans and oceans of potentially terrible games. This is especially true when speaking of the Xbox Live Indie Game Marketplace.

While I understand this apprehension, it is not an excuse to ignore the amazing games that are being produced by indie developers. My sole purpose here is to help people discover new, fantastic, worthwhile games, so if you see something that catches your eye, check it out. It's probably pretty badass.